“I was called a stupid liar,” American murder suspect Amanda Knox said in Italian court recently. “I received slaps to the head, I really did. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

NBC addressed this allegation today in the video above, which includes an interview with Chris Mellas, Amanda’s step-father. He’s attending the trial of Amanda and her ex-Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in Perugia, Italy. They are accused of helping sexually assault and kill her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy on Nov. 1. 2007. A third suspect, Rudy Guede, chose an abbreviated trial. In September he was sentenced to 30 years in jail.

Amanda, a Seattleite still enrolled at the Unversity of Washington, first made the hitting allegation on Nov. 6, 2007, shortly after her arrest, in a “memoriale.” She said Italian police pressured her to change her story, that she was hit on the head whenever she didn’t get a fact right. She’s been in jail ever since.

After she repeated the abuse charge in court last week, many police witnesses denied it, insisting she’d been treated well and even given a good breakfast after the interrogation, which began around 11:00 p.m. on Nov. 5 and ended at 5:45 a.m. on Nov. 6. That’s when Knox suddenly switched stories, making the “false confession.”

When first interviewed as a witness, Knox said she spent the night of the murder at the apartment of her boyfriend, Raffaelle Sollecito. During the long interrogation, she told a fantastical tale. She said she’d left Raffaele’s apartment on the night of the murder, that she met her boss, Patrick Lumumba, at the nearby basketball court, that they went to the cottage where he killed Meredith while she, Amanda, stood in the kitchen, her hands over her ears.

That lawyerless statement is the wheel on which this trial turns, even though it’s been ruled inadmissible. Amanda repeated enough of it in the memoriale–albeit saying she was confused and unsure of nearly everything–to give the prosecution talking points.

So why did she change her story? Why did she take it back?

Only one thing is certain: After she made the “false confession,” police arrested Patrick Lumumba and jailed him for several weeks. He was released when he produced a strong alibi, but police forced him to close his bar. When it finally reopened, few customers showed up. He shut it down.

This week Patrick received 8,000 euro in compensation from the Italian state, an amount he says isn’t enough to make up for the ordeal.

“We consider this amount unfair for all the damage he’s suffered,” lawyer Carlo Pacelli told the AP. “In a second his image as a man, as a father and husband has been completely destroyed.”

So far little light has been shed on this issue, although the judge has ordered an investigation and the prosecution has threatened to sue Knox for slander. No videotape is available. No audio has been produced.

In “faltering Italian,“ Amanda said in court last week: “I want to stress one point that is very important to me.” She claimed there were “hours and hours” of interrogation that the police “do not say anything about, where I confirmed the same version.”

She also said she’d “received scappellotti on the head,” (slaps with an open hand), “emphasizing and reiterating this detail.”